| Blogging Magnets |
| the official blog of Magnets.com |
Strategic internet marketing is certainly Eric’s forte! He is the mastermind behind many of our marketing efforts and he is super intelligent, witty and smart! After working for some of the top companies in New York, we are lucky to have him aboard! Eric joined our team approximately two years ago as the Internet Marketing Manager and he brought his interactive marketing expertise and innovative ideas along with him.
Loyal customers help business thrive! According to a study by the global business consulting firm, Baines and Company,”a 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75 percent!” In addition, loyal customers are likely to recommend your business to friends and acquaintances. Retaining customer loyalty is not hard to do -all you need is a little TLC.
Partnering with bloggers to spread your message is a powerful and strategic channel that many small business owners can incorporate into their marketing mix. According to Nielsen study results, “Ninety percent of consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online”. Bloggers with a large following who have significant knowledge and experience within a certain topic or industry along can indeed influence how people think, behave, act, and spend.
Now that we have discussed many of the free methods of increasing your site traffic and bottom line, it’s time to move to paid techniques. But don’t let ‘paid’ scare you –you’ll be completely in the driver’s seat. We promise.
Imagine your company’s ad(s) appearing at the top of Google search results pages when prospective customers search for a term relating to your business or company. Or what about serving ads to local Facebook users who meet your company’s buyer profile? Talk about highly targeted and strategic!
Bars, restaurants, and pizza shops of the country rejoice: with our latest giveaway you have the opportunity to win 500 free *custom* designed magnets to promote your business!
To qualify all you need to do is answer one simple question – “What would you do with 500 magnets?” To enter:
1. Simply respond in 250 words or more and post it to your Web site or company/personal blog.
2. Add one of the following code snippets to your write-up:
3. When you’ve published your answer, send an e-mail to info@magnets.com with “Magnet Giveaway” in the subject line and the URL of your answer in the body, along with your name, phone number, and business address.
It’s that easy!
Cutting to the chase, the winner will receive 500 free 4×6 custom promotional magnets, and two runners up will each be given 500 free 2×3.5 (business card size) custom magnets! Entries will be accepted from December 15, 2010 until February 15, 2011, and all three winners will be announced on February 28th. Please click here for complete contest rules and details. Good luck, and let the entries come in!
Ever wonder how companies large and small, global and local alike end up with a nice article in the newspaper? Or in industry magazines? Answer: chances are they have a savvy public relations person on staff (or on retainer) who has the know-how to get valuable (and free) media placements. Read on and be your own public relations guru.
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Now that you have some insight on the top social media Web sites, the following tips are sure to help you get started!
Learn it and Embrace it
To start off, create a profile for yourself so that you can see how it works from a consumer’s point-of-view. Check out how your favorite companies and businesses are using social media, and take notes on how they engage customers and prospects. For example, many companies like to conduct referral contests to increase their fan base to help gain awareness, credibility, and additional sales. Similarly, if you own a restaurant you can post your special promotions and events on your page and draw people in with contests or information they are sure to seek out.
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By now, you’re sure to have heard about social media and how it’s changing the way we communicate and interact with one another. From Facebook to YouTube and everything in-between, new social media websites sites are being launched on a regular basis, storming into our everyday lexicon.
All fine and well, but there’s also much for the small business to gain -understanding just how social media operate can be a huge advantage in terms of marketing your business for free online, creating buzz, and obtaining customer feedback. According to SEO.com, “Social media marketing engages customers on a more personal level, and can rapidly create buzz around a product, brand, or business. It can also be more cost effective than traditional forms of advertising and outreach”.
Interested? Great! Here’s a bit about social media’s biggest players and how your business can benefit.
Taking a “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it” philosophical approach, your new Web site will do little for your business if it’s not getting much -or any- traffic. While you can certainly pay for visitors, this post focuses exclusively on organic, or un-paid means of driving traffic. Commonly referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the following strategies are sure to help improve the visibility of your Web site in the major search engines, all in the name of generating much needed traffic and business.
Keyword Research
Let’s say you own a North Carolina plumbing business. If a potential customer is using Google, Bing, or Yahoo! to find a plumber, what words (called ‘keywords’) are they likely to type and search for? Plumber? Plumbing service? Clogged toilet? Or something altogether different? Serving as the foundation of SEO, identifying which keywords pertain to your business is essential to having your site come up for relevant searches.
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